lings and
sixpence a week, and after his last misfortune promised him a good
coffin, actually furnishing him with money to support him in Newgate,
and several good books, if he would have made any use of them; but
because he freely declared to Blueskin that there was no hopes of
getting him transported, the bloody villain determined to take away his
life, and was so far from showing any signs of remorse when he was
brought up again to Newgate, that he declared if he had thought of it
before, he would have provided such a knife as should have cut his head
off.

At the time that he received sentence there was a woman also condemned,
and they being placed as usual in what is called the Bail Dock at the
Old Bailey, Blake offered such rudeness to the woman that she cried out
and alarmed the whole Bench. All the time he lay under condemnation he
appeared utterly thoughtless and insensible of his approaching fate.
Though from the cutting of Wild's throat, and some other barbarities of
the same nature, he acquired amongst the mob the character of a brave
fellow, yet he was in himself but a mean-spirited timorous wretch, and
never exerted himself but either through fury and despair. His cowardice
appealed manifestly in his behaviour at his death; he wept much at the
chapel in the morning he was to die, and though he drank deeply to drive
away fear, yet at the place of execution he wept again, trembled and
showed all the signs of a timorous confusion, as well he might, who had
lived wickedly and trifled with his repentance to the grave.

There was nothing in his person extraordinary. A dapper, well-set fellow
of great strength, and great cruelty, equally detested by the sober part
of the world for his audacious wickedness of his behaviour, and despised
by his companions for the villainies he committed even against them. He
was executed in the twenty-eighth year of his age, on the 11th of
November, 1724.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] See page 85.

[46] An encampment was formed in Hyde Park, about 1714. Writing
to Martha Blount, Pope says "The tents are carried there this
morning, new regiments with new clothes and furniture, far
exceeding the late cloth and linen designed by his Grace (the
Duke of Marlborough) for the soldiery."

[47] See also the Life of Jonathan Wild, subsequently related.

The Life of the Famous JOHN SHEPHERD, Footpad, Housebreaker and
Prison-breaker

Amongst the